Word-Wednesday for January 3, 2024

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for January 3, 2024, the first Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of winter, and the third day of the year, with three-hundred sixty-two days remaining.

Wannaska Phenology Update for January 3, 2024
Ice Safety

December is usually one of the two coldest months of the year in Wannaska, where ice safety in most of Minnesota is all but assured. Not this year.  The Minnesota DNR has this to say about ice safety:
There really is no sure answer. You can't judge the strength of ice just by its appearance, age, thickness, temperature, or whether or not the ice is covered with snow. Strength is based on all these factors -- plus the depth of water under the ice, size of the water body, water chemistry and currents, the distribution of the load on the ice, and local climatic conditions.

Did you know?

New ice is usually stronger than old ice. Four inches of clear, newly-formed ice may support one person on foot, while a foot or more of old, partially-thawed ice may not.

Ice seldom freezes uniformly. It may be a foot thick in one location and only an inch or two just a few feet away.

Ice formed over flowing water and currents is often dangerous. This is especially true near streams, bridges and culverts. Also, the ice on outside river bends is usually weaker due to the undermining effects of the faster current.

The insulating effect of snow slows down the freezing process. The extra weight also reduces how much weight the ice sheet can support. Also, ice near shore can be weaker than ice that is farther out.

Booming and cracking ice isn't necessarily dangerous. It only means that the ice is expanding and contracting as the temperature changes.

Schools of fish or flocks of waterfowl can also adversely affect the relative safety of ice. The movement of fish can bring warm water up from the bottom of the lake. In the past, this has opened holes in the ice causing snowmobiles and cars to break through.

January 3 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


January 3 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for January 3, 2023
Sunrise: 8:17am; Sunset: 4:39pm; 1 minutes, 11 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 11:43pm; Moonset: 11:40am, waning gibbous, 56% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for January 3, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High             14                     44                     18
Low              -6                   -46                      6

For a New Beginning
by John O’Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

January 3 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Drinking Straw Day
• National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day
• Fruitcake Toss Day
• Memento More Day
• The Tenth Day of Christmas

January 3 Word Riddle
How do you know that corduroy pillows are still popular?*


January 3 Word Pun

January 3 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

    O, what's the loud uproar assailing
    Mine ears without cease?
    'Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing
    The horrors of peace.

    Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it—
    Would marry it, too.
    If only they knew how to do it
    'Twere easy to do.

    They're working by night and by day
    On their problem, like moles.
    Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,
    On their meddlesome souls!
    —Ro Amil


January 3 Etymology Word of the Week
resolve

/rə-ˈzôlv/ v., settle or find a solution to (a problem, dispute, or contentious matter); decide firmly on a course of action, from late 14th century, resolven, "melt, dissolve, reduce to liquid; separate into component parts; alter, alter in form or nature by application of physical process," " intransitive sense from circa 1400; from Old French resolver or directly from Latin resolvere "to loosen, loose, unyoke, undo; explain; relax; set free; make void, dispel."

This is from re-, here perhaps intensive or meaning "back" (see re-), + solvere "to loosen, untie, release, explain," from Proto-Indo-Europiean se-lu-, from reflexive pronoun s(w)e- (see idiom) + root leu- "to loosen, divide, cut apart."

From the notion of "separate into components" comes the sense in optics (1785; see resolutionhttps://www.etymonline.com/word/resolution). From the notion of "reduce by mental analysis into its basic forms" (late 14th century) comes the meaning "determine, decide upon" after analysis (1520s), hence "pass a resolution" (1580s); "decide, settle" a dispute, etc. (1610s). For sense evolution, compare resolute (adj.).

In Middle English also "vaporize a solid, condense a vapor into a liquid, etc.;" a mid-15th century document has Sche was resoluyd in-to terys where a later writer might have she dissolved in tears.

January 3 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1496 Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.
• 1521 Martin Luther is excommunicated by Pope Leo X from the Roman Catholic Church for failing to recant parts of his Ninety-five Theses.
• 1842 Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine leave Liverpool, England for America on board the RMS Britannia.
• 1843 Gaetano Donizetti's opera Don Pasquale premieres in Paris.
• 1853 Solomon Northup, author of the memoir Twelve Years a Slave, is freed.
• 1888 First wax drinking straw patented.
• 1889 German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche suffers a mental breakdown.
• 1899 First known use of the word automobile, appears in an editorial in The New York Times.
• 1959 Alaska admitted as 49th US state.

January 3 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 106 B.C. Cicero, Roman philosopher.
• 1698 Pietro Metastasio, Italian poe.
• 1730 Charles Palissot de Montenoy, French playwright.
• 1803 Douglas William Jerrold, English writer.
• 1835 Larkin Goldsmith Mead, American sculptor.
• 1845 Annibal Napoleão dos Santos, Portuguese pianist and composer.
• 1855 Hubert Bland, English author.
• 1870 Henry Handel Richardson [Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson], Australian novelist.
• 1884 Raoul Armand Georg Koczalski, Polish pianist and composer.
• 1886 John Gould Fletcher, American poet.
• 1891 Osip Mandelstam, Polish-Russian poet and author.
• 1892 J.R.R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien, British author.
• 1893 Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, French novelist.
• 1895 Borys Lyatoshynsky, Ukrainian composer.
• 1905 Padraic Fallon, Irish writer.
• 1916 Maxene Andrews, American pop and sing jazz singer.
• 1951 Bruen, Irish writer.
• 1962 Francesca Lia Block, American author.
• 1971 České Budějovice, Czech screenwriter.

Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Write a story or pram from the following words:

• antiscii: /an-TISH-ee-igh/ n., people who live on the same meridian, but on opposite sides of the equator (so that their shadows at noon fall in opposite directions). Also in extended use: any two opposites; (with singular agreement) the antithesis of.    
• breem: /brēm/ adj., furious, excessive, fierce.
• crawmassing: /KRAH-mas-ing/ n., the act of picking through those wonderful leftovers of Christmas dinner; the dubious practice of begging for Christmas goodies from one’s neighbors.
• exennium: /eks-EHN-ee-uhm/ n., a gift given at the New Year.
• fidimplicitary: /FID-ihm-PLIS-ih-tay-ree/ adj., pertaining to one who easily places their trust in the views and opinions of someone else.
• insipience: /ə̇n-ˈsip-ē-ən(t)s/ n., the lack of intelligence.
• kinkle: / KING-kuhl/ v., to become twisted or kinked; (of hair) to curl. Also transitive: †to cause (something, esp. hair) to develop kinks or curls.
• revirescent: /REE-vih-RESS-int/ adj., becoming young and vigorous again; showing signs of new growth.
• shog: /ˈshäg/ v., to shake, jolt; n., shake, jolt.
• vitiligo: /ˌvīdl-ˈī-ɡō/ n., a condition in which the pigment is lost from areas of the skin, causing whitish patches, often with no clear cause.

January 3, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
resolution — making and keeping

/ˌrez-ə-ˈlo͞o-SH(ə)n/ n., a firm decision to do or not do something, from late 14th century, resolucioun, "a breaking or reducing into parts; process of breaking up, dissolution," from Old French resolution and directly from Latin resolutionem (nominative resolutio) "process of reducing things into simpler forms," noun of action from past-participle stem of resolvere "to loosen" (see resolve  (v.)).

The meaning "steadfastness of purpose" is by 1580s. The meaning "effect of an optical instrument in rendering component parts of objects distinguishable" is by 1860. In Middle English it also could mean "a paraphrase" (as a breaking up and rearranging of a text or translation).

In the mid-15th century it also meant "frame of mind," often implying a pious or moral determination. By 1580s as "a statement upon some matter;" hence "formal decision or expression of a meeting or assembly," circa 1600. The New Year's resolution in reference to a specific intention to better oneself is from at least the 1780s, and through 19th century they generally were of a pious nature.

So here we go again. This past Monday, Ginny gave us a wonderful mediation on the ways her personal history since childhood has ripened into a resolution to write with pen and ink in the coming year. As for the rest of us, we might be motivated to fight a temptation, to improve our bodies/minds/spirits, to change for what we perceive to be the better, to break an old habit or to develop a new one, to write a diary, to publish on time, to update my blog.

Might you? Must you? Should you? Could you? Will you? Like Ginny, the more specific and personal your reasons, the firmer your resolve. Here are a few words of inspiration (or not) from some thoughtful authors:

RESOLUTE, adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve.

Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil’s Dictionary

Keep young. Many men talk about being born again. Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page.

Henry Ward Beecher

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The object of preaching is, constantly to remind mankind of what mankind are constantly forgetting; not to supply the defects of human intelligence, but to fortify the feebleness of human resolutions.

Sydney Smith

Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions.

Dr. Samuel Johnson

A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

Thomas Hardy, the voice of the narrator, in Far From the Madding Crowd

Good resolutions…are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Perhaps there is no more important component of character than steadfast resolution.

Theodore Roosevelt

The man who will not execute his resolutions when they are fresh upon him, can have no hope from them afterward. They will be dissipated, lost in the hurry and scurry of the world, or sunk in the slough of indolence.

Maria Edgeworth

It takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

W. R. Inge

May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions!

Joey Adams

New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.

James Agate

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.

Abraham Lincoln

It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution.

Anthony Trollope

He who is firm and resolute in will molds the world to himself.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Whatever our problems are, dreams can provide novel ideas and sometimes magnificent resolutions.

Patricia L. Garfield

However many resolutions one makes, one’s pen, like water, always finds its own level, and one can’t write in any way other than one’s own.

Vita Sackville-West

Good resolutions are easy to make. So is lemon meringue. Both are almost impossible to keep.

Kay Cleaver Strahan

I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.

Anaïs Nin

Good resolutions are like babies crying in church. They should be carried out immediately.

Charles M. Sheldon

Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

Benjamin Franklin

Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.

Brad Paisley

New Year’s Day. Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

Mark Twain

Be it sloppy
Or be it neat
The diary book
Cannot be beat

Chairman Joe

From A Year with Rilke, January 3 Entry
Entering, from Book of Images

Whoever you may be: step into the evening.
Step out of the room where everything is known.
Whoever you are,
your house is the last before the far-off.
With your eyes, which are almost too tired
to free themselves from the familiar,
you slowly take one black tree
and set it against the sky: slender, alone.
And you have made a world.
It is big
and like a word, still ripening in silence.
And though your mind would fabricate its meaning,
your eyes tenderly let go of what they see.

Alexander Pushkin at the Seashore
by Leonid Pasternak

Be better than yesterday,
learn a new word today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.






*They are still making headlines.